Yours Truly
by suicidesg
Summary: An English assignment turns into something more for Arland and Harlem, two eighteen year old girls about to finish their last year. . .
**1.**

"Earth to Arland," Colette hums as she knocks on the desk where the Latina sits with her knuckle.

Arland raises her blue eyes from the paper in front of her to meet with her best friend's brown ones and sees that Colette has an eyebrow kinked up knowingly. "What?" Arland asks obliviously. "Sorry, I was rereading the letter." Colette and Arland are currently in history, waiting for the bell to ring to signal the official start of class as their fellow students begin to pile into the room.

"I asked you if you wanted to hang out with Hana and me later tonight," Colette chuckles. "Or do you want to spend the night alone in your room dreaming about your secret little admirer who you've become borderline-obsessed with throughout the past two months or so?"

Arland feels her cheeks get warm in embarrassment. "I am not obsessed with her," she mumbles sheepishly as she flips the piece of paper over, hiding it from Colette's lurking eyes. "I do, however, kind of have a crush on her."

Colette smiles and reaches over to place a hand on Arland's wrist, using her thumb to rub her skin softly. "I know you do and I think it's adorable," she says genuinely. "In the eight-plus years I've unfortunately known you," she jokes, "I've never seen you this happy and captivated with anyone else before. And it's even cuter that you don't even know who she is!"

It's true. Arland may not know her name or what she looks like or the sound of her voice, but she does know her. She knows the girl's interests, hobbies, passions, dreams, pet peeves and she definitely knows her handwriting, seeing as that's the only way they can interact. The messy chicken-scratch that at first annoyed Arland now enamored her. It made her heart flutter every single time she opened a new letter and her eyes took in the different, yet messy, strokes and curls of her pen and the crossed out words here and there (the girl never, ever wrote in pencil if she had the choice because she hated the way it fades with time).

What started out to be a random English assignment that Arland thought was going to be uninteresting and a waste of time turned out to be the single most important thing that she looked forward to every day. Her English teacher, Ms. Ashworth, devised an assignment that would extend to all four of her English classes to make things a little bit more interesting and the possible pool of people would be that much greater.

Ms. Ashworth has a total of approximately 100 students between all of her senior classes that she teaches and she made sure to pair everyone up with one other person at random but only she would know who's partnered up with whom. Partners could be in the same class or they could be in another class. It's impossible to tell, really. The assignment is that every night, everyone would handwrite a letter to their partner anonymously and she wasn't going to read it so they were free to write whatever their hearts desired. She would just check to see that they actually did the assignment. The point of it is to be able to freely write and just be able to connect with someone without knowing their identity because she believes that sometimes people are too preoccupied with judging people based on their looks that sometimes that blindness prevents people from meeting others who they could potentially get along with really well. Arland thought of it as the signing show, "The Voice", but with writing instead.

So, every day the students would put the letter they wrote to their partner into their own individual files in a cabinet in her room and once school was over and all of the kids were gone, Ms. Ashworth would then go and distribute all of the letters to their corresponding partners' files in private.

Needless to say, English is Arland's favorite class. She always rushes through the door to the cabinet, finds her last name, and excitedly opens it to take out the letter waiting for her to read before dropping in the one she wrote. It was a constant cycle for Arland.

Arland's not exactly sure how they even began to get as close as two people who don't even know each other's names can be. It just gradually began to happen after the whole introduce-yourself-without-really-introducing-yourself thing. The girl's interest in books, music, and movies immediately intrigued Arland and she was also taken by her choice of words and her dorky sense of humor. It was definitely lame to say the least, but it never failed to make Lauren smile and giggle late at night when she would reread her letters over and over again, her mind too engrossed with the girl on the other end to sleep.

"You did it again." Colette's voice suddenly enters Arland's ears, shaking her out of her deep thoughts. "You know, for someone so smart, I think you have the attention span of a goldfish."

Arland laughs apologetically. "I'm sorry, I was thinking about—"

"I know you were, kid," Colette interrupts, winking. "It sucks that I don't have Ashworth as my English teacher because she sounds bomb and so does this assignment. Speaking of which, what happens after this little project ends?"

The blue-eyed girl tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. "I don't know, honestly. I mean, there is this sense of adventure and excitement of not knowing, but at the same time I would actually cut off my foot if it meant I could find out who she is right now. I'm totally stuck between wanting to know and not wanting to know. I mean, what if she doesn't like me? What if she's not even into girls? What if she's not who I expect? What if—"

"Arland, you can go forever and ever with all the 'what if' crap," Colette interrupts, "but you're missing the single most important one."

Arland tilts her head to the side and looks at her friend quizzically. "What?"

Colette smiles kindly, her eyes just barely crinkling at the sides. "What if it does work out?

Arland does, in face, politely decline Colette and Hana's invitation to hang out on this warm Thursday night. She is particularly tired tonight, seeing as how she's in the late stages of getting over a slight cold. She really just wants to curl up in her bed with a mug of tea. There are, disgustingly, a lot of sick people at school, so she's not exactly sure who the culprit that transferred it over to her is.

As soon as she gets home from school, Arland greets her mom and dad with quick pecks on their cheeks before running up the stairs, flopping down on her comfortable bed, the letter already in her hand. Lauren's read it already this morning as soon as she received it from the file cabinet, but it won't hurt her to read it again. She smiles as soon as she sees Mystery Girl's chaotic handwriting.

 _Dear Don't-insert-name-here,_

 _First off, in response to your question in the last letter, I do think that cats understand us when we're speaking to them. They simply just don't care about us to really care about what we say. Have you seen them? They're so prideful and think they're so High-and-Mighty, which is exactly why I am a dog person._

 _Also, I've been watching Friends a lot on Netflix like you told me to, and I am absolutely in love with it. However, Ross makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. He's easily my least favorite character out of the cast. I do adore Phoebe though. I feel like she's someone who needs to be protected at all costs. Who are your favorite and least favorite characters?_

 _Also, again, I hope today was a good day for you and that you feel better! I know you've been a little sick and gross lately and I don't see why you still drag your butt to school every morning. Are you trying to get everyone else infected, too? I know you like and work hard in school, but dude, your health is far more important. I'd like it if you get better soon, yeah?_

 _So anyways, I do genuinely hope you get better soon and you take it easy until then! As always, looking forward to your next letter. (:_

 _Yours Truly,_

 _She-who-shall-not-be-named._

Arland is awoken the next morning by a shake on the shoulder roughly and she groans in annoyance, her eyes refusing to open and immerse themselves in the sunlight that's peeking through her window blinds. "What?"

"Honey, you overslept," her mom's voice rings clearly in her ear. "It's seven o' clock now."

Arland's eyes shoot open and the sudden rush of adrenaline and anxiousness immediately wash any trace of drowsiness in her body. She normally gets up at 6:15, so she's definitely late. "Shoot," she mutters, flinging the blanket off of herself. "It must have been the medicine I took last night that made me sleep through my alarm."

"Are you sure you're well enough to go to school?" her mom asks, concern clear in her voice. "I know you hate missing class, but I also don't want you to feel like you have to go when you're sick like this."

Arland strips off her pajamas and slides into comfortable and worn jean shorts. "Yeah, Mom, I'm positive," she reassures her, sneaking a glance at her mother, Clara, who's practically a spitting image of her. "Until I'm on the verge of death and hacking my lungs out, that's when we can reconsider."

Clara chuckles softly. "Well, if you hurry now, you can still make it to first period and only be about fifteen minutes late or so. English, right?"

Arland smiles to herself, saying, "Right."

Arland smiles as she swings her backpack off of her shoulders and takes out the crisp piece of paper. She then heads over to the file cabinet and sticks it in her folder while Ms. Ashworth resumes teaching the class.

Arland then takes her usual seat in the middle of the room and takes out her notebook. She looks around to see who she could ask to see the notes and decides to ask the girl in front of her, considering she was the closest person near her. Arland knows her name is Harlem, but that's the only thing she really knows about her. She hasn't ever really noticed her before and this is the only class that they share together, but Lauren's memorized just about everyone's names already since school has been in session for a couple of months.

Arland gently taps her on the back and she turns around slowly, her shoulders slightly hunched over and her brown eyes shy. "Hey, Harlem, right?"

She gives a small nod in confirmation.

"Do you think I could see the notes I missed?"

Harlem nods again politely as she grabs the sheet of paper off of her desk and places it on Arland's desk. "I'm probably the worst person to ask; my handwriting is hardly legible." She smiles timidly.

Arland grins reassuringly. "No worries, I think I can manage. Thank you."

The smaller girl smiles once again before turning around in her seat. Arland grabs a pen and paper from her backpack and she's about to start copying down Harlem's words, but her eyes widen suddenly in recognition.

She knows the handwriting. She's looked at it every day for the past two months. She's read the scrawled letters thousands of times. Her heart has fluttered seeing the scribbles numerous amounts of times. This is the same initial illegible handwriting that eventually became the easiest thing Arland's ever learned to read.

"Oh. . . ."

 **2.**

Arland immediately covers her mouth with her hand, completely unaware that she was a second away from screaming. Luckily, her small yelp wasn't loud enough for her teacher to hear, but it was loud enough for Harlem and a few classmates around her to hear, seeing as their heads turned to look at her oddly.

Harlem raises an eyebrow and whispers innocently, "Is my handwriting that bad?"

Arland's cheeks immediately get insanely warm and her heart rate accelerates as she stares at Harlem's wondering face. She probably looks like an idiot right now staring at the girl in front of her, completely dumbfounded, but she physically cannot pull her eyes away. There's no way that Arland could possibly be mistaken. She knows the handwriting better than her own.

Harlem continues to look at Arland, her brown eyes squinting at her a bit strangely. Arland definitely looks like an idiot. She finally regains some control and clears her throat quietly. "No, I just realized that I forgot my math homework at home," she says stupidly. "Guess it totally slipped my mind." That earns a shy smile from Harlem and Arland can't help but smile back. The smaller girl then shifts her body back towards the front of the classroom again, leaving Arland to stare at the back of her head.

Every single ounce of confidence has vanished from her body, her fingers trembling and her breathing uneven. Arland has spent hours, days, weeks, months wondering who the person she's grown to adore could have possibly been and now that she's found her, she's so taken back at the abruptness and unexpectedness that she already made herself look like a fool. What a lovely first impression.

Arland stares down at Harlem's paper, eyes inspecting every scribble on the paper and the more she looks at it, the more certain she is that Harlem is in fact the person she's grown to be so intrigued and captivated with. Every single stroke of the pen perfectly resembles what she's been so used to reading the past couple of months.

Arland runs her fingers through her blond, wavy hair and lets out a huff of air. What is she going to do with this sudden information now? She does, however, know for sure that she will not tell Harlem that she knows. How does one even drop a bomb like that anyways?

But how could Arland not have ever spoken to Harlem until now? She's sure she's seen her around school all these years but never made a point to interact with her in any way and now that it's their last year of high school, Arland can't help but grow angry with herself for potentially missing out on such a lovely person. Just solely based on the sloppily written letters every single day, Arland can undoubtedly tell she's someone so sweet and genuine, even if they've never formally met before.

Arland cannot help but want to talk to her again. Even if it's just a single word, she wants to hear her voice and see her face again, considering she's missed out on it so much already.

Arland suddenly hears Harlem giggle to herself ever so quietly and curiosity takes over and forces Lauren to slightly peek over her shoulder to see what's tickling her funny bone. She sees that Harlem's reading something and adjusting herself a bit more. Arland's able to see exactly what it is.

It's her letter, the one she wrote last night.

The droning bell rings, indicating the end of first period and Arland sighs, knowing that she's going to have to wait an entire day before she's back in this class with Harlem. Arland packs up all of her stuff and she's about to leave when Harlem accidentally drops a pen and the both simultaneously lean down to reach for it, only to bump heads. Hard.

Arland and Harlem both groan and wince in pain, rubbing their red foreheads with their hands to try to subside the dull ache. "Okay, ow," Harlem grunts, her face grimacing in discomfort.

"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry!" Arland apologizes, impulsively leaning over close to her face to gingerly inspect the smaller girl's head. Arland places one hand on her cheek to steady her and uses the other to push her bangs back to get a better look. "Are you okay, Harlem?"

Harlem's cheeks are now just as red as her forehead as she sees how close Arland is to her. "I will be," she reassures her shyly. "Are you okay? It takes two to clash heads, you know."

"I'll be okay," she answers.

Harlem shyly reaches over and squeezes Arland's upper arm softly to say goodbye before she walks out the door, leaving Arland standing there smiling ear-to-ear, the pain in her head completely diminished.

 **3.**

The weekend was horribly long and boring with Harlem practically sprinting around Arland's mind the entire time, making her anxiously wait around the house until Monday rolls around again.


End file.
